BioScience articles from June 2009

BioScience archives from June 2009

Peer review.(American Institute of Biological Sciences Scientific Peer Advisory and Review Services)(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... AIBS SPARS facilitates impartial review of research proposals and ongoing programs that focus on medicine, advanced technologies, biotechnology, and wildlife and environmental concerns. We work collaboratively with funding agencies from the...

On-site meetings support.(American Institute of Biological Sciences Scientific Peer Advisory and Review Services)(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... AIBS SPARS provides logistical support for meetings of all sizes. Our staff is acutely aware of the demands placed on scientists; therefore, we facilitate all arrangements to enable participants to focus on their scientific duties rather than...

Program review.(American Institute of Biological Sciences, Scientific Peer Advisory and Review Services)(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... AIBS SPARS assists clients in achieving research results through on-site program reviews and establishing monitoring oversight of ongoing scientific research programs. AIBS reviewers assess current progress and provide recommendations based on...

Beyond the envelope.(bioclimatic envelope modeling)(Editorial)
June 1, 2009... Biologists are familiar with studies that estimate the range of temperatures that must prevail for a species to survive and then examine where those temperatures might be found under various scenarios for the future climate. The approach, which...

Member societies and organizations.(List)
June 1, 2009... Academy of Natural Sciences American Arachnological Society American Bryological and Lichenological Society American Fern Society American Fisheries Society American Malacological Society American Mosquito Control...

The economic value of ecosystem services.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2009... Luck and coauthors (2009) in their thoughtful article examine "the concepts of service-providing units (SPUs) and ecosystem service providers (ESPs)." In spite of their able analysis of these concepts, they concede that "the contribution that...

[Cartoon].(Letters)(Cartoon)
June 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] PLEASE, GYPSY MOTHS TOOK EVERYTHING.

Converting the religious: putting amphibian conservation in context.(Viewpoint)(Viewpoint essay)
June 1, 2009... In August 2007, at a remote site in the Darien Province of Panama, I surveyed amphibians for immune defenses against Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, the lethal chytrid fungus linked to many population extinctions throughout Central America....

The dingo dilemma: Australian dingoes have long been hunted and poisoned, but they play an important role in maintaining native wildlife.(Report)
June 1, 2009... Adam O'Neill is a hired gun in the cause of Australian conservation. A muscular man with close-cropped hair, he drives a battered Toyota pickup, fitted with a rifle rack, that's seen many miles of use in the remote outback. "I've always been a...

Will Congress include ecosystem monitoring in climate legislation?(Washington Watch)
June 1, 2009... Coral bleaching, earlier leaf budding, pika range shifts--these are only a few of the documented effects of climate change on species and ecosystems. Congress is trying to pass legislation responding to climate change, yet some scientists are...

Molecular data are transforming hypotheses on the origin and diversification of eukaryotes.(21st Century Directions in Biology)(Report)
June 1, 2009... The explosion of molecular data has transformed hypotheses on both the origin of eukaryotes and the structure of the eukaryotic tree of life. Early ideas about the evolution of eukaryotes arose through analyses of morphology by light microscopy...

The resource discovery initiative for field stations: enhancing data management at North American biological field stations.(Field Stations)
June 1, 2009... Biological field stations in North America have significant potential for addressing the most pressing environmental challenges facing science and society. Many of these field stations are now actively engaged in research networks and...

Global population dynamics and hot spots of response to climate change.(Report)
June 1, 2009... Understanding how biotic and abiotic factors influence the abundance and distribution of organisms has become more important with the growing awareness of the ecological consequences of climate change. In this article, we outline an approach...

Alternative reference frames in river system science.(Report)
June 1, 2009... Understanding environmental processes begins with mental conceptualizations of system components and interactions. Conceptualizing rivers begins with adopting one of two reference frames for observing movement: Eulerian, wherein the flux of...

Ecosystem thinking in the Northern Forest--and beyond.(Forum)
June 1, 2009... Regionally based, collaborative efforts from diverse stakeholders are critical to identify and address diverse and complicated environmental challenges. We present here an example from the Northern Forest Ecoregion of the northeastern United...

Training tomorrow's environmental problem solvers: an integrative approach to graduate education.(Education)
June 1, 2009... Environmental problems are generally complex and blind to disciplinary boundaries. Efforts to devise long-term solutions require collaborative research that integrates knowledge across historically disparate fields, yet the traditional model...

The Ehrlichs strike again.(The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment )(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment. Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. Island Press, 2008. 440 pp., illus. $35.00 (ISBN 9781597260961 cloth). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 1968 Paul R. Ehrlich published The...

What good is science?(Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health. Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins. Monthly Review Press, 2007. 400 pp., illus. $22.95 (ISBN 9781583671573 paper). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Biology...

The ever enigmatic Ediacarans.(The Rise of Animals: Evolution and Diversification of the Kingdom Animalia)(Book review)
June 1, 2009... The Rise of Animals: Evolution and Diversification of the Kingdom Animalia. Mikhail A. Fedonkin, James G. Gehling, Kathleen Grey, Guy M. Narbonne, and Patricia Vickers-Rich. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.344 pp., illus. $75.00 (ISBN...

New titles.(Books)(Bibliography)
June 1, 2009... Animal Osmoregulation. Timothy J. Bradley. Oxford University Press, 2009. 178 pp., illus. $60.00 (ISBN 9780198569961 paper). The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. James T....

AIBS urges house to fund science.(AIBS news)(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... On 27 March 2009, the AIBS Public Policy Office provided testimony to the House Committee on Appropriations in support of increased fiscal year 2010 federal appropriations for the competitive, peer-reviewed research grant programs at the...

Public policy office to conduct policy training programs this September.(AIBS news)(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... The Association of Ecosystem Research Centers (AERC) and the Long Term Ecological Research Network have arranged for the AIBS Public Policy Office (PPO) to conduct policy training workshops for their member scientists at their forthcoming...

AIBS, ESA coauthor budget analysis.(AIBS news)(Ecological Society of America)(American Institute of Biological Sciences)(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... Robert Gropp, AIBS director of public policy, and Nadine Lymn, public affairs director of the Ecological Society of America, have teamed together to analyze the fiscal year 2010 budget request for biological and ecological sciences programs in...

Recent executive director's blog entries online at http:// blogs.aibs.org/richardogrady.(AIBS news)
June 1, 2009... * AIBS annual meetings: Themes and audiences, onsite and online

Recent Articles Online at www.actionbioscience.org.(AIBS news)(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... Original article in English * "The Decline of North American Freshwater Fishes," by Stephen J. Walsh, Howard L. Jelks, and Noel M. Burkhead, US Geological Survey, Gainesville, Florida "Technology: An Educational Issue?" blog post ...

Recent public policy reports online at www.aibs.org.(AIBS news)(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... Public Policy Report for 27 April 2009 * Obama visits the Academies, shares plans for science * Scientists visit Capitol Hill: Support the National Science Foundation, US Department of Agriculture research * Climate legislation...

Calendar of meetings.(Calendar)
June 1, 2009... June 12-16 American Society of Naturalists, Moscow, ID; www.amnat. org/ASN/mee.html 12-16 Society for the Study of Evolution, Moscow, ID; www. evolutionsociety.org/meetings. asp 21-26 Society of Wetland Scientists, Madison, WI;...

Surprising fossil finds.(BioBriefs)(Report)
June 1, 2009... A new Cambrian predator has been discovered, in a way. Hurdia victoria, originally described in 1912, has been pieced together from parts previously attributed to other taxa, thanks to a large number of specimens collected from the Burgess...